Well, yes, they are straight forward and if you do as it says, you never run into problems. But they throw little things in your path to make it more "hard". Their main immigration office is far outside in Shinagawa. You have to fill out the same three papers when you extend your VISA, etc. My its only every three years but still.
And which japense person is not ultra-happy when you fill it out in Japanese (like they Kanji are magic and only learnable by japanese people).
Still, I have heard and seen enought strict japanese rule over foreigners that I believe, if you do wrong and you are a foreigner, you are fucked.
On the other hand, if you have a working visa, earn a lot of money and give a lot of taxes, they tend to squeeze their eyes if you miss out on a visa extension...
It's all about the money. Perhaps if that guy would have kept the cash in Japan and payed taxes nobody would have sayed a single thing.
you have a working visa, you are allowed to work, for the part your visa is allowed. You have a student visa, you study, you don't make $1million. If they catch you, you are out. Plus he might get a 1 or 10 year ban on returning to Japan.
Seriously, if you care about living in Japan, don't fuck with the officials, they are more Xenophobic than any other country I could imagine.
[thought I love living in Japan, its always about the people you meet]
The high price? I'd rather say, because they are rather rare and special, thats why people want them.
You could also then say poeple want a Ferrari because it is so expensive. And I would say, no, they want a Ferrari, because it is special to own one. (which could be traced back to the fakt that you need gazillions of money units to get one).
Until it comes to the day when the little gimp-kid wants to go into printing and gimp does not support any industry standard. bo-ho. Free is not always free.
Thats why 99% from our designers use Macs. Hmm, must be because Mac is not so dominant. Don't let yourself be fooled by the "home" designers who buy Photoshop and run it at home. Office work is mostly done on Macs.
Missing: 16 bit color processsing (needed for RAW editing, high end, etc) CYMK (never come because of Patent problems) Speed (Photoshop CS vs latest Gimp on a Mac, Gimp is really useless, speed wise) for Mac: proper Aqua include and not rely on X (GTK needs to be done, progress of that is unknown to me right now) GIMPshop needs to replace current Gimp (most or actually all pros know the layout of Photoshop)
Besides your nice horror storry about lost tapes - what kind of tapes were they? - I have to share some thoughts from Japan - paper tiger number one - to you.
In Japan you have to keep all your sales, purches, whatever papers for some time. Big companies, like Toshiba, Sony, Matsuhita (Panasonic, National), etc have _huge_ warehouses where they store, litteraly, tons of papers there. This costs them enormous amount of money, because this has to be in a building that is earthquakeproof to a certain extent and so on. Plus, although outside of Tokyo, land is still very expensive.
So they started to scan in and store everything electronically. Because even if you have to rotate the storage media, or have to extend your storga capacity, it is still much cheaper then keeping enormous warehouses with tons of paper.
It's this ignorance that will keep Linux out of every home forever. I can rename files in the windows file selector, in the Mac one, even in the KDE one. But well, Gnome people are so much more smarter.
Well, before I would give anyone a Linux box, I'd rather fight with windows and viruses.
Yeah, great, compare wares fought 60 years ago to some radical terrorist groups. Thats why the Isreal attack on Lybanon worked so awesome and now all Hisbollah are so scared that they will give up.
You do not fight a war against a _whole_ country like against the German Reich or the Japanese Empire. You fight a loosing battle against some radical people who can disappear somewhere in some country anytime they want. It's more finding a needle in a haystack and getting rid of it.
There is no way to win against terrorism. Never, terrorism just appears in areas with strong wealth difference were people have nothing else to do, or areas with strong idealism difference where poeple in utter no other way try to force their will on others with terrorism.
Yeah, the problem is, if you have coordinates from eg chizu maru or yahoo japan, you cannot convert them easily to the google location coordinates. Very sad.
There is a very neat script made by a guy for flickr. You just click on the link when you are on a single picture and then just go to the location and click done. Very easy.
Try to type in "Tokyo" into ask and get a "nothing found", or "Japan, Tokyo", nothing there. if you scroll there. Well, there is green and blue... Looks like Tokyo has not yet started existing.
The best global map is still google.
For the best local map, it is all different. There are chizumaru, yahoo japan for example, which are superious in detail and information for maps. But for none japanese users, they are kinda uselss (thought the japan maps from google are also all in Japanese).
I live in Japan and it is impossible to actually geo tag your pictures, because the smaller zoom ranges are not in the yahoo DB yet. Well, sadly flickr was bought by yahoo, so they cannot use the google maps which are way more detailed way more better.
What I do not understand is, why yahoo can not use the yahoo japan maps which are highly accurte. Seems I have to wait quite some more time before I can start do any geo tagging.
that in Japan they do the little twist that on official papers you have to write the japanese year. Which dead confuses me, because I always forget in which japanese year I was born. I just know that we are now in H and before was... S? Showa? Now _thats_ damn confusing:)
and not going with the flow means you are a terrorist!
Those were sure Al-Kaida terrorists. Lucky the cops could take them down, before they could turn that tree into a huge treehouse where a new Al-Kaida cell would have been created.
If you are a typeset guy and come from printing, say goodbye to the same everywhere in the internet. I can overrule your layout with a local style on my computer. You want it to look the same everywhere. create a JPEG and put it online.
On the release date there were _NONE_. Not a single game that I would call a "typical japanese game". And thats RPG. Or Meacha/RPG. Now, which means, gazillion of ages later. They came out with one Mecha and one RPG. "oh wow". Well that will get none of those out from the back.
In my opinion, because those who would have the side money, are not any more the ones who would buy and xbox if they already have a ps2. Most of them use their mobile phone for gameing. Second, those who are nerdy enought to perhaps buy an xbox also have no reason to do so, because just for those two games, who are not really "supers", they wont do it. Major japanese RPG things are still released PS2 only. Third, hit games, that target only japanese market, wont be relesed for these big systems. I am talking about the "brain games". Thats the big hit. Number 1 for ages for the DS was a brain train game. Same for the PSP. Why? Because in the short time, japanese have time to play games, thats during the train ride, and japanese just love those "brain games".
So what should MS do different? They cant. They lost, like the PS3 will loose. Because none of those have new concepts. They are just "better graphics". No, that will not make anyone buy it. Not the masses. The masses will buy something like Wii. A system that has an innovation, and that makes fun. Yes, some nerds will get the PS3, and so on. But they wont make the cash come in.
In Japan the big TV konsole thing is over. Not dead, but over. Keitai games, DS, thats where the cash is right now. A japanese co-worker bought herself the DS, not primary for gaming, but because it has a dictionary in it and she can play those "brain games". Seems to me, MS can try as long as they have the money, but they wont make a pot of gold in Japan.
Mobile phones. Most poeple tend to play this nowadays. The typical Otaku culture changed a bit. There no more super long queues for game releases or hardware releses, well there are, but they are far from what they were.
And at the end, its all about the games. Why would anyone buy a new console, if he/she can get the same games for the PS2 which is already in their homes. Most of them are casual games, and none of them are online RPG playes.
Third, the biggest craze in Japan are "brain train games". Both top sellers for the PSP and the Nintendo DS are brain train games. Japan follows crazes. There is the "black chocolate craze", "the brian train game craze",... its a group thing here. People buy what is Number one and not what is the best. Everywhere you have the "top 3 super famous best selling things". Mobile phones, cameras, or whatever...
MS is out of the loop here and to be honest, they will stay out. The next big thing could only be the Wii. Half of my japanese colleges are all over it. "So cheap" "looks so much fun"... Well, just my two foreigner-in-japan Yen
Slashdot Mirror
Well, yes, they are straight forward and if you do as it says, you never run into problems. But they throw little things in your path to make it more "hard". Their main immigration office is far outside in Shinagawa. You have to fill out the same three papers when you extend your VISA, etc. My its only every three years but still.
...
And which japense person is not ultra-happy when you fill it out in Japanese (like they Kanji are magic and only learnable by japanese people).
Still, I have heard and seen enought strict japanese rule over foreigners that I believe, if you do wrong and you are a foreigner, you are fucked.
On the other hand, if you have a working visa, earn a lot of money and give a lot of taxes, they tend to squeeze their eyes if you miss out on a visa extension
It's all about the money. Perhaps if that guy would have kept the cash in Japan and payed taxes nobody would have sayed a single thing.
you have a working visa, you are allowed to work, for the part your visa is allowed. You have a student visa, you study, you don't make $1million. If they catch you, you are out. Plus he might get a 1 or 10 year ban on returning to Japan.
Seriously, if you care about living in Japan, don't fuck with the officials, they are more Xenophobic than any other country I could imagine.
[thought I love living in Japan, its always about the people you meet]
The high price? I'd rather say, because they are rather rare and special, thats why people want them.
You could also then say poeple want a Ferrari because it is so expensive. And I would say, no, they want a Ferrari, because it is special to own one. (which could be traced back to the fakt that you need gazillions of money units to get one).
Well, but if you just look to the sales in Japan and compare the sales of xbox 1 & xbox 360 compare to the ps2 & ps3, then there is a huge difference.
why, if I do, I still buy normal CDs.
Different player? Doesn't support my current format. Well, if everything breaks, I can always re-rip them and do not need to re-buy them.
There is an absolutly awesome free solitaire for Mac: http://www.lavacat.com/
I am sure there is a Minsweeper Mac version too out there.
Until it comes to the day when the little gimp-kid wants to go into printing and gimp does not support any industry standard. bo-ho. Free is not always free.
Thats why 99% from our designers use Macs. Hmm, must be because Mac is not so dominant. Don't let yourself be fooled by the "home" designers who buy Photoshop and run it at home. Office work is mostly done on Macs.
Missing:
16 bit color processsing (needed for RAW editing, high end, etc)
CYMK (never come because of Patent problems)
Speed (Photoshop CS vs latest Gimp on a Mac, Gimp is really useless, speed wise)
for Mac: proper Aqua include and not rely on X (GTK needs to be done, progress of that is unknown to me right now)
GIMPshop needs to replace current Gimp (most or actually all pros know the layout of Photoshop)
Besides your nice horror storry about lost tapes - what kind of tapes were they? - I have to share some thoughts from Japan - paper tiger number one - to you.
In Japan you have to keep all your sales, purches, whatever papers for some time. Big companies, like Toshiba, Sony, Matsuhita (Panasonic, National), etc have _huge_ warehouses where they store, litteraly, tons of papers there. This costs them enormous amount of money, because this has to be in a building that is earthquakeproof to a certain extent and so on. Plus, although outside of Tokyo, land is still very expensive.
So they started to scan in and store everything electronically. Because even if you have to rotate the storage media, or have to extend your storga capacity, it is still much cheaper then keeping enormous warehouses with tons of paper.
It's this ignorance that will keep Linux out of every home forever. I can rename files in the windows file selector, in the Mac one, even in the KDE one. But well, Gnome people are so much more smarter.
Well, before I would give anyone a Linux box, I'd rather fight with windows and viruses.
any human rights irrelevant.
Then you should say "Franken" to make it clear ;)
Yeah, great, compare wares fought 60 years ago to some radical terrorist groups. Thats why the Isreal attack on Lybanon worked so awesome and now all Hisbollah are so scared that they will give up.
You do not fight a war against a _whole_ country like against the German Reich or the Japanese Empire. You fight a loosing battle against some radical people who can disappear somewhere in some country anytime they want. It's more finding a needle in a haystack and getting rid of it.
There is no way to win against terrorism. Never, terrorism just appears in areas with strong wealth difference were people have nothing else to do, or areas with strong idealism difference where poeple in utter no other way try to force their will on others with terrorism.
Yeah, the problem is, if you have coordinates from eg chizu maru or yahoo japan, you cannot convert them easily to the google location coordinates. Very sad.
There is a very neat script made by a guy for flickr. You just click on the link when you are on a single picture and then just go to the location and click done. Very easy.
as long as you stick to the good old USA.
... Looks like Tokyo has not yet started existing.
Try to type in "Tokyo" into ask and get a "nothing found", or "Japan, Tokyo", nothing there. if you scroll there. Well, there is green and blue
The best global map is still google.
For the best local map, it is all different. There are chizumaru, yahoo japan for example, which are superious in detail and information for maps. But for none japanese users, they are kinda uselss (thought the japan maps from google are also all in Japanese).
I live in Japan and it is impossible to actually geo tag your pictures, because the smaller zoom ranges are not in the yahoo DB yet. Well, sadly flickr was bought by yahoo, so they cannot use the google maps which are way more detailed way more better.
What I do not understand is, why yahoo can not use the yahoo japan maps which are highly accurte. Seems I have to wait quite some more time before I can start do any geo tagging.
cool, you are born in the same year like me :) now I know where to search if I do not know my birth year in Japanese ;)
that in Japan they do the little twist that on official papers you have to write the japanese year. Which dead confuses me, because I always forget in which japanese year I was born. I just know that we are now in H and before was... S? Showa? Now _thats_ damn confusing :)
the rest is just not logical.
only with y/m/d you have a perfect sort order everywhere. Everything else is just screwed up.
and not going with the flow means you are a terrorist!
Those were sure Al-Kaida terrorists. Lucky the cops could take them down, before they could turn that tree into a huge treehouse where a new Al-Kaida cell would have been created.
If you are a typeset guy and come from printing, say goodbye to the same everywhere in the internet. I can overrule your layout with a local style on my computer. You want it to look the same everywhere. create a JPEG and put it online.
On the release date there were _NONE_. Not a single game that I would call a "typical japanese game". And thats RPG. Or Meacha/RPG. Now, which means, gazillion of ages later. They came out with one Mecha and one RPG. "oh wow". Well that will get none of those out from the back.
In my opinion, because those who would have the side money, are not any more the ones who would buy and xbox if they already have a ps2. Most of them use their mobile phone for gameing. Second, those who are nerdy enought to perhaps buy an xbox also have no reason to do so, because just for those two games, who are not really "supers", they wont do it. Major japanese RPG things are still released PS2 only. Third, hit games, that target only japanese market, wont be relesed for these big systems. I am talking about the "brain games". Thats the big hit. Number 1 for ages for the DS was a brain train game. Same for the PSP. Why? Because in the short time, japanese have time to play games, thats during the train ride, and japanese just love those "brain games".
So what should MS do different? They cant. They lost, like the PS3 will loose. Because none of those have new concepts. They are just "better graphics". No, that will not make anyone buy it. Not the masses. The masses will buy something like Wii. A system that has an innovation, and that makes fun. Yes, some nerds will get the PS3, and so on. But they wont make the cash come in.
In Japan the big TV konsole thing is over. Not dead, but over. Keitai games, DS, thats where the cash is right now. A japanese co-worker bought herself the DS, not primary for gaming, but because it has a dictionary in it and she can play those "brain games". Seems to me, MS can try as long as they have the money, but they wont make a pot of gold in Japan.
Mobile phones. Most poeple tend to play this nowadays. The typical Otaku culture changed a bit. There no more super long queues for game releases or hardware releses, well there are, but they are far from what they were.
... its a group thing here. People buy what is Number one and not what is the best. Everywhere you have the "top 3 super famous best selling things". Mobile phones, cameras, or whatever ...
... Well, just my two foreigner-in-japan Yen
And at the end, its all about the games. Why would anyone buy a new console, if he/she can get the same games for the PS2 which is already in their homes. Most of them are casual games, and none of them are online RPG playes.
Third, the biggest craze in Japan are "brain train games". Both top sellers for the PSP and the Nintendo DS are brain train games. Japan follows crazes. There is the "black chocolate craze", "the brian train game craze",
MS is out of the loop here and to be honest, they will stay out. The next big thing could only be the Wii. Half of my japanese colleges are all over it. "So cheap" "looks so much fun"